In Renders
by Mayet
Summary: Riley and Gabriel through the renders. Riliel, rating to be safe


**Intelligence**

**Summary:** Riley and Gabriel through the renders. Inspired by mintjulip58's _Betrayal_, where Lillian mentioned that Riley was sure to have featured prominently in Gabriel's naughty renders.

**Pairing: **Gabriel/Riley

**Rated: **T (for the final part that you may, or may not decide to read)

**Warnings:** reasonably explicit and not checked by a beta, all mistakes are mine

**In Renders**

The first time it happened, Gabriel had no idea how. One minute he was perfecting his dinner, the next he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and found his partner watching him quietly from her position at his table, an extra plate set in front of her. Gabriel raised his eyebrow; he had deliberately avoided Riley after he had nearly shot her a few hours prior when Mei Chen had hacked his chip. His hand unconsciously went to his cheek. He could still feel where she had punched him to jolt him out of his sleepwalking – or perhaps render-walking – state. They hadn't talked about it again, even after she had blatantly lied about assaulting him, and he had been grateful for that. He didn't know what to say to her. There was nothing that could undo what had happened, nothing that could make it right or make her trust his ability to distinguish reality from render again. He stroked gently where her fist had made contact with his face. It was still sore, but that was a small price to pay for her life.

"I'm sorry," she quipped at him. His eyes narrowed at the impish tone in her voice.

"No, you're not," he replied with a playful scoff.

"It was better than using a defibrillator on you like Nelson suggested, and I was a bit preoccupied about getting you to stop pointing a gun in my general direction," she told him with a small smile. She was taking this in much too good a humor to be real. The real Riley had been tense during the rest of their flight, unable to go back to sleep. Still, her words touched something in him, and remorse rose to his face again.

"I know. I'm sorry," he murmured. His voice was so quiet, he wasn't sure she had heard it, even in this unexpected render, but he meant it. He had never wanted to hurt her, or scare her. She was his bodyguard, his partner, whether he liked it or not. They needed to trust each other, and he felt that he had shaken what trust they'd managed to rebuild after Amelia's death through his actions while Mei Chen was inside his head.

"I don't need you to be sorry, Gabriel. It's not your fault," she assured him, and now she sounded exactly like Riley. He looked up at her, and saw nothing but comprehension in her face too. "What are you cooking?"

Change of subject; he could work with that.

"Why, you hungry?", he asked with a handsome smile.

"I just think your sauce is boiling over."

Turning back to the stove, he realized she was right. He grabbed a kitchen towel to move the pan off the fire, and shut off the stove. A long string of curses could be heard throughout the apartment as he attempted to salvage at least some of his precious sauce. He didn't have the time to start from scratch. He heard Riley laughing behind him, and cast her an evil glance, but she merely shrugged at him. In the end, her laughter was contagious, and Gabriel couldn't help release a chuckle of his own. He saved what he could for a friendly dinner, though obviously his partner didn't eat a crumb of food. Instead she shared her concern with him that Mei Chen may go for another attempt at getting him to join her side, and they discussed a few possibilities until they both ran out of ideas and had to admit that there was no way to plan ahead for such an event. The chip was as safe from being hacked as it could be after the Doc's upgrade to its security, so their conversation soon drifted over to other topics. They even argued over the movies they could watch, though the scales were clearly in his favor as he had a real physical presence. All in all, Gabriel thought that it was a great night amongst friends.

After meeting Special Agent in charge Griffin in person, there was nothing more about the man that Gabriel felt the need to know, though he still did wonder on occasion what had attracted his strong, independent, tough-as-nails partner to that particular wimp, so it didn't happen again until after she had been kidnapped by that Mexican scum. When he'd seen them drag her away, his hands had tightened enough around the rifle that it had hurt. He had wanted to scream, and when he had seen her, dirty and tied up like a helpless lamb, he had had to suppress a ferocious growl. He had been relieved to know she had kept a cool head, so as to help him find them, and seeing her in person had taken a ton of rocks off his heart. He didn't want anyone to die for him. He certainly didn't want Riley to die at the hands of drug lords, because he hadn't been able to get the job done. She had been in his render again that evening, and he had enveloped her in a bear hug the moment he saw her form out of thin air.

"Don't ever scare me like that again," he told her emphatically, whispering directly next to her ear. He felt her shiver in response, before her hands came up to respond to the embrace. She gave as good as she got in every aspect of her life, it seemed, and they held onto each other tightly for what seemed like hours. When they finally let go, his hands found their way to her shoulders, and squeezed tightly once to make sure he had her attention. "I've lost enough people already. I refuse to lose anyone else. Next time, we stick together."

"Gabriel," she replied sternly, a note of exasperation in her voice. "I'm never going to deliberately place you in danger. Don't expect me to. I protect you-"

"We are partners," he growled, cutting her off. "We protect each other. You can't make decisions like that – handing yourself over to a drug cartel – on your own. We're in this together. And besides, all you'll achieve is that I go in, alone if necessary, to haul your pretty ass out of trouble."

"Gabriel!", Riley cried in outrage at his choice of words. A smack landed squarely on his arm, but it had been so worth it, because he could see the message sink in. He would always come for her – now, if only he could scrap up the guts to say all that to her face... Not that she didn't know, but it would somehow mean something else if only he could say it in bright daylight.

"You're as insufferable in your renders as you are in real life, Vaughn," Riley grunt out, but there was an upward quirk to one corner of her full lips, which took the sting out of the words, and made him grin right back at her.

"That's why you love me, partner."

Of course she went and got infected on their next mission. He should have known. As reluctant as she had been to crawl under the relative safety of the blanket with him to get out of the burning shack, he had seen gladness and affection in her eyes when he insisted that they were partners. These renders became a regular occurrence after that. Not that he didn't talk to Riley in person; they even went for tacos after the nanobots incident. Her company, real or rendered, had a way of making him feel better, and he felt that they grew quite a bit closer over the time. So when she appeared in his flat after he had only just regained his memories from Jin Cong's cyber attack, he immediately told her to go away. He couldn't handle her now, either face to face or as a ghost in his dreamlike projection. He'd been so out of control, he had hurt his friends, tied up his boss, nearly handed the Athens list to a terrorist and, worst of all, he had almost shot his best friend. He had almost shot Riley, again. He had wanted to. He had intended to, but something in her had made him hesitate. Then she'd started talking, had told him to listen to his heart instead of his head, had asked him to feel for her instead of analyzing her.

"Gabriel, it wasn't your fault." Her voice was decisive. She would not tolerate any disagreement; well, tough, because neither would he.

"Riles, I nearly killed you today. I held my gun to your head, even after you hadn't shot me when you should have. Even after that, I was willing to murder you in cold blood." He stepped away from her, away from this fight, half-afraid there might be something of the _other_ Gabriel still left in him, half-afraid he would hurt her in his render.

"But you didn't!", she practically yelled at him as she moved closer, breeching the distant he had put there to keep her safe. She advanced with no heed to his retreat until he bumped into his punching bag. Momentarily distracted by an attempt to stop it from swinging uncontrollably, he didn't turn his eyes back to her until it was too late. She was right in front of him, her hands on his face. Her thumbs stroked his cheeks absentmindedly. Gabriel closed his eyes at how real it felt. His renders always seemed real to his eyes, but they had always been motionless evidence walls. This one was moving and touching, and he realized that the chip could fool his other senses too. He almost believed that Riley was right there with him. "You hesitated, even before I spoke to you, because that's the kind of man you are. You knew something was off; you knew me even though you didn't remember me... That slight moment of hesitation was how I knew how to get through to you."

She was so earnest; he swallowed hard. Here went nothing.

"When you told me to look at you and listen to my inner voice, I was reluctant to explore my hesitation, because I already knew what my inner voice would say."

"What was that?", Riley asked gently, one hand moving slightly down to rest against the side of his throat. His arms came up of their own volition to hold onto her waist. Her face was so close, he could feel the small puffs of air as she breathed raggedly. Her sweet-smelling breath caressed his skin and lips. He wanted to breathe her in, so he did.

"What it had been saying the entire time already," he whispered with a heavy voice, his eyes slightly lidded. "That I can trust you. That you are always there for me. That you are my friend, and that I would never forgive myself if I hurt you."

"You just knew."

"Yes," he breathed, barely remembering what he had said to her about knowing the right guy by her inner voice as he closed the distance between them. He had never rendered a situation like this before, out of loyalty to Amelia. His wife's death had killed any sexual appetite for a while, and when it had returned with an inclination for displaying his partner's face to him, contorted in pleasure and eyes alight with passion, he had swiftly given up on it entirely. It had always been too close to home, too complicated. They worked together; it was wrong; it was... perfect. The kiss was brief, almost tentative, but it was quickly followed by another, then another, until one kiss bled into the next, and they couldn't remember how many they had shared. When she disappeared on him that night, Gabriel touched his lips, though no evidence remained in the real world of their imaginary kisses. This was certainly for the best as he didn't think it would be a good idea for Lillian, the Doc, Nelson or, God forbid, someone outside their group of friends to find out what he was (mis)using the chips unexpected capacity to render for.

Which didn't, of course, mean that it didn't happen again. And again. And then some more. He and his cybernetic Riley enjoyed quite a few social get togethers even when no emotional outfall from their missions warranted some personal rendering. He refrained from calling them dates until they lost their rendered clothes for about the third time. At that point, pretending that it didn't affect him or that it hadn't become clear that Riley meant something to him was useless. She wasn't in his renders just for sex. If it were just sex he was after, he could render the blond at the Cyber Command's front desk or some supermodel from Victoria's Secret. He chose Riley, though, he would always choose Riley, and that had more to do with her quick wit, sharp tongue, loyalty and affection toward him than with her gorgeous figure, though that certainly contributed to his excitement too. They were more than partners, more than friends. The way they interacted with each other in the real world was proof of that, but so far everything more had been strictly confined to the projections he enjoyed immensely. Maybe someday they would share a kiss face to face – until then, the smoldering glances and the easy banter had to be enough. He would let it be enough, to woe her, caress her and love her in his dreamlike renders.

**End?**

**(A/N: If you don't mind a twist that will take this story slightly AU, please enjoy the rest.)**

As he watched her move above him one night, her legs firmly around his thighs and her head thrown back slightly to expose the curve of her throat, he couldn't help but rise to lick at it from her shoulders to her cheek. He bit down none too gently on the soft skin at her pulse point, and was rewarded with a loud, pleasured hiss from his partner. She leaned back a bit to allow him access to her sensitive breasts, and he was only too happy to oblige her. When their gazes met briefly as he latched onto a soft mound, he was reminded of an unpleasant conversation he had had with Mei Chen. He only had eyes for Riley, though. They were so alike, created by others for their purposes; was it any surprise that he was drawn to this woman like a moth to a flame. If he was Adam, and Mei Chen wanted to be his Eve, then he definitely preferred Riley's Lilith. A man didn't need to always be on top; he enjoyed watching Riley take her pleasure and give him back as much too greatly. He chuckled a bit at the thought, and kissed the valley between her breasts softly, sweat-slicked skin salty to his taste buds. A grin tugged at her lips simply as a response to his own amusement, and then mischief sparkled in her eyes when she pushed him firmly back down onto the bed, and gave a particular hard shove against his hips. They both groaned at the intense contact, repeating the movement only a few more times to reach their climax. Riley's head was thrown back completely now, and his hands gripped her hips tightly. As soon as he had regained some consciousness, he found her heaving above him, shuddering as she tried not to fall onto him. He caressed a path gently across her stomach and upwards over her left breast with one hand to clasp behind her neck, and tug her down on top of him. They moved to their sides shortly afterwards, snuggling close in his bed.

"Wish it didn't have to be over," she murmured against his chest.

"You and me both." He tugged her closer.

Gabriel knew she wasn't really there, and that they were probably both clutching pillows at the moment, but as long as they were in the render, it felt real. When he trailed his fingers down her arm, he could see the goosebumps forming.

"How's the wound?", he asked as he traced the soft white plaster. She'd tackled him again to protect him from the bad guys. She really needed to stop doing that. Riley was just as important as he was, but she just noticed trouble sooner than him. It was how she worked. It had only been a graze, but with her disposition, he was a bit worried. She was so sensitive; a side effect of the chip the Doc had implanted in her brain. It was a different model to his own; hers was built for the maximization of sensory input. Her access to data on the information grid was slower than his, but her renders were more accurate. You could see people's every freckle, every pore in one of her renders. She could process much more sensory input much faster than he or anyone else could. Unfortunately, this also made her more susceptible to its effects. All her senses were affected, including her sensitivity to pain. She didn't let people see it, usually, but he wanted her to be honest with him.

"It stings, but it'll pass."

"Are you in pain? Why didn't you say something? We didn't have to- I, you know I care more about you than... this, right?" He gestured helplessly between them. It was the closest he could come to articulating how he felt about her. Some things needed to be said to one's face, and he had no intention of cheating her, cheating them out of that chance.

"I know. I care too, and I wanted you. Don't worry Gabriel, I'm fine." She gave him an encouraging smile, and he nodded. Then she looked down. "I don't want to go back to my own bed."

"You never left."

"Could have fooled me," she whispered back with a kiss to his chest. He stroked her hair in response, then moved himself so he was eye-level with her.

"I quite prefer our joined renders too. Who would have thought that there'd be two things the chips do that the Doc didn't anticipate... I do wonder, though," he murmured, casting his glance down as he moved his hand across a scar on her stomach. "How much of this is real, and how much are you projecting?"

"I could say the same to you, Vaughn," she teased right back. "I like my body the way it is, and I'm honest in my render – what about you?"

"Please, there's never been a woman on Earth happy with her body," he scoffed tauntingly at her. "What are you hiding?" He poked her in the stomach, then tickled the underside of her breast as she made valiant efforts to bat his hand away.

"Don't change the subject now, Gabriel." She barely had the words out that an all out tickle match started. They shifted in bed trying to get the better, and ended up with him sprawled halfway on top of her and their lips dancing over each other in a smoldering kiss. Her hands came around his neck, one of them fisting in his hair, while his own traveled the length of her body. He had just reached her thigh and begun to move his hand to the inside of it, when they were rudely interrupted by his phone. He tried to ignore it, but Riley cast him a stern look that would have probably worked better if she hadn't also looked so put out.

"We said this wouldn't interfere with work," she reminded him.

"Maybe it's not work," he replied unconvincingly, but grabbed the phone. Of course it was Lillian's name that showed up as the caller ID.

**A/N:** As mentioned above, I got inspired by mintjulip58's Betrayal, and then I watched the first episode again, and wondered what it would be like if Riley could actually see the render he created of Cassidy's kidnapping. And that got me thinking... Hope you liked it.


End file.
